An Epigenetic Jungle

A gibbon is swinging across a river within an epigenetic
landscape, which regulates compaction and expression of our DNA. The arid
desert illustrates loosely packed DNA containing actively expressed genes,
whereas the tropical forest represents densely packed chromatin. The gibbon
genome is similar to ours, but many regions were heavily rearranged during
evolution. Still, even the rearranged genes keep their original epigenetic
landscapes because the shuffling has occurred at boundaries between these
regions – like a river separating distinct landscapes.

I made this illustration for a recent Genome Research paper from the Carbone lab. Check out their fascinating story!

A gibbon within a epigenetic landscape, swinging across a histone jungle and a DNA desert.